Gael's Blog

Confidence Challenge June 2015: ‘Positano’ inspirations to keep you positive

Tuesday, June 30th, 2015

This June blog is very late and you may have noticed that I missed May too! There have been many reasons why recently I have not been able to write when I had expected to be able to do so. The main one was that our daughter decided to get married and only gave us six weeks to get over the surprise and make and un-make many plans!

But another reason that my writing plans were frustrated was that, for the most of May and a significant part of June I was without a reliable Internet connection. As someone from a major world city who lives much of my life on the Web, this problem felt like a major disaster!

My inability to rectify this problem quickly was possibly due to the fact that I was staying first in the south of Spain and then the south of Italy. All the places I was in are wonderful holiday destinations. Not only do they have sun and sea, they all have that laid-back attitude to life that us stressed-out ‘townies’ frequently crave for. In both cultures having fun and long siestas rank much higher in their list of priorities than problem-solving!

Most of the time I find this attitude soothes my soul but on this occasion I found this ‘mañana’ philosophy, more than a little irritating. But interestingly, by the time I reached the latter end of June, my attitude had changed. When once again my internet connection failed, I was able to simply smile, shrug my shoulders and get back to enjoying the pleasures of Positano which is the stunningly beautiful place in the photo above.

An ability to stay positive in the face of problems and frustrations is one of the most crucial requirements for maintaining our inner confidence. This is not a personal characteristic that comes ‘naturally’ to me – even when I am in such a favourable environment. I still have to keep my more natural negativity in check. I have to force myself to think positively and smile. Doing both does work – eventually! And, when it does, my self-esteem gets a boost as well.

When I got back to the Uk this past week-end, I thought it was much too late in the month to do a Confidence Challenge for June. I began to feel bad and berated myself again for failing to do May’s one too. But now, here I am writing one on June 30! I think I deserve a treat, don’t you?

Confidence Challenge June 30 2015

During the next few weeks when you meet an irritation, however minor such as being caught in a traffic jam or a long queue, do the following:

re-focus your thinking on something positive

e.g. “At last I have time to think “/ “the wild flowers on the bank are truly beautiful”

force yourself to smile – research has proved that this does help to change your mood

take 2-3 deep slow breaths

screw up any muscle that you can (e.g. your face, hands, or toes) and then slowly release. Repeat at least 3 times.